Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host - by the Power of God - thrust into hell, Satan and all the evil spirits, who prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Universalis, your very own breviary in pixels...

Saturday, 3 December 2016

"Jesus told St. Faustina that He comes to every soul three times at the time of death." My ex-husband committed suicide, and I have always hoped that at the hour of his death that he realized that God wasn't the Big Meanie in the Sky that he had been fighting."

I repeat this because I have been looking for ways to explain various situations, doctrines, practices, etc. of the Faith - to children.
It's hard.
It's really hard.
Sometimes when you are fooled, rather, you've fooled yourself into thinking you've succeeded, you find yourself like the couple who thought they'd succeed with their children and the Ten Commandments.
"Hey," said a small one at bedtime, who really glommed onto the 6th, "We should write a book! Curious George commits Adultery!"
Anyway, I'm not sure this is good, or true, or non-insulting to the Chosen People, but it occurred to me recently, that the Big Meanie in the Sky, the one in the Old Testament that Abraham had to try to wheedle the safety of the Gomorrahans out of, had a bit in common with the parents of adolescents.

Teenagers often completely misunderstand the emotions on adults' faces.
"My parents are pissed off because I went and and did xxx ...." when the expression on Mom and Dad'sf aces was really terror and relief at the stupid and dangerous thing their child has just survived.

Is the Angry Father glowering down from the heavens, the vengeful law-giver simply a misinterpretation on the part of adolescent humanity?

... you thought I was going to say, "Christ," didn't you?
No, the'res more than one answer, boys and girls.
It turns out ignorance of scripture leaves a gaping lacuna in the study of sexual sociology.
To whit:

The work of sociologists has long been concerned with the relationship between urbanization and sexuality, especially in the form of visible clusters or neighborhoods typified by specific sexual moralities or practices. Identification of 'vice areas' and, latterly, 'gay villages', has been a stock in trade of urban sociology since at least the time of the Chicago School.

Really? at least since the 1920s or '30s?
No one noticing the phenomenon, and how it would affect both the denizens of such areas and, you know..... visitors, and, when you think about it, migration from said urban enclaves, a bit earlier?

It's old, it was dirt cheap, and it's starting to malfunction so frequently, and freeze requiring restarts thats it is almost useless.
So, I'm going through everything actually on it, rather than preserved for posterity somewhere in the ether, and I am at a loss - why did I once think it necessary to remember that Sheldon Cooper's proposed nicknames for Amy Farrah Fowler included Princess Corncob, Gollum, and Fester?

Assuming post-synodal exhortations are magisterial, (I am not convinced they are) and magisterial teachings may lawfully be developed, but not negated, (of this, I am convnced.)

Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage.This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children's upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they "take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples."Similarly, the respect due to the sacrament of Matrimony, to the couples themselves and their families, and also to the community of the faithful, forbids any pastor, for whatever reason or pretext even of a pastoral nature, to perform ceremonies of any kind for divorced people who remarry. Such ceremonies would give the impression of the celebration of a new sacramentally valid marriage, and would thus lead people into error concerning the indissolubility of a validly contracted marriage.